Actually, it is not the police training that is at fault, it is the determinate negligence of dog owners to train, discipline, and instill automatic obedience to voice/hand commands to their "pet." Neither will they commit to be accountable for the pet's unacceptable behavior. Instead, they typically shift the blame, then publicize the event to a touchy-feely pet-lover community whose compassion is often misplaced.
On the other hand, the police professionals understand exactly how to achieve immediate, unquestioning obedience in their K9 dogs. Why should not the dog owner commit to the same level of accountability?
Lack of owner responsibility for control of the dog may well be the underlying reason why so many incidents are increasing. A plethora of untrained pit bulls, Rottweilers, and Dobermans not temperamentally suited for urban families may also multiply these tensions.
We helped the mother in law by sausage training hers until he could hardly stand up to say nothing of running straight at you with mouth open, yapping, and snapping.
Then some do-gooder put him on a diet. Just darn!
You could be more wrong, but I can't imagine how.
A dog is going to protect his person against a stranger that the dog believes is a threat to his person. What is happening all too often is that cops are entering premises uninvited and shooting the dog out-of-hand simply because the dog is there. I have 7 dogs, all of whom are very well-behaved with my wife and myself. Under most circumstances, they are reasonably well-behaved with strangers with the exception of a couple of dogs who bark incessantly at the stranger.
Barking is one of the behavior's that cops are being trained are indications of aggressiveness and they are shooting as a result. The two dogs who bark the most at strangers are a Chihuahua and a Dachshund/Corgi mix - clearly threatening and dangerous to a human who is much larger nd better able to protect themselves from such a small dog without the aid of a .357 or a police special (/sarc).
My pit bull, BTW, loves people nd wouldn't ever think of hurting one - behavior we have observed many, many times in the years we have had this dog. However, this sweet, gentle animal would be among the first to be shot by a cop "just because".
Again, I reiterate that this is an issue of training, communication and discipline. The cops aren't trained to assess situations better and understand that the dog may not be threatening them, but warning them not to hurt their person. The dispatchers need to be trained to stop sending cops to the wrong house!! The dispatcher's need to communicate information more clearly and make sure they send someone to the correct address before this situation repeats itself. And, finally, the cops need to be less aggressive than the dogs, analyze the situation better and seek better solutions than shoot first and apologize later. It is ironic that cops will tolerate a plethora of wild, bad behavior from suspects without even so much as pulling their weapon, but they won't hesitate to kill an animal.